It came to me on my last day of the trip while walking the streets of Kofu and stumbling upon a local Japanese winery. IT WAS THE END TO THIS AMAZING EXPERIENCE…..but I had also gone full-circle from the first day of my trip in Iceland bathing in geo-thermal hot springs in Reykjavik to my last day of the trip and relaxing at the Hell Valley Hot Springs near Nagano. The main difference between the two locations was that Iceland had women and men bathing near me and in Japan, I had the luxury of bathing with furry animals (the beautiful snow monkeys, also know as macaques) in the low mountains of Nagano. Yes, I said “monkeys” and “bathing with them.” This was a cool experience, but one that brought some sadness to me.
I was not ready to end this trip. I had been on the road for 5 months and at this point had became so accustomed to the travel habits that the last thing I wanted to do was fall back into the conformed lifestyles of America. Those travel habits that had become basic nature: living out of a backpack, growing my hair, sleeping anywhere, little to no plans for the next day, staying longer in a city or place if you liked it and leaving when you had enough, experimenting new foods each day, eventually leaning towards soup for breakfast and tea all day, meeting new people each day of which some spoke English and others just smiled, and lastly continuing to explore with no boundaries!
My final story of this trip takes me to my last train journey from Nagano to Tokyo Airport via Kofu. This route is an indirect way, but one that if lucky would give me and the other passengers views of Mt. Fugi. The weather was partly cloudy, but I was optimistic that the clouds would pass and we would all be blessed with a magnificent look into the greatness of this volcano. Well, three hours into the journey and making a transfer in Kofu, I had come to the conclusion that me seeing Mt. Fugi was unlikely to occur. However, in this small city nestled in a valley between the Japanese Alps, I was reminded of the beauty of traveling and the excitement of the unknown. I had a 2-hour layover in Kofu and had decided to go walking the streets and seeing what I might find…..about an hour later, I had made it past the old castle, a temple complex with two towering pagodas, and to my surprise finished at a local winery. The winery had vineyards surrounding the hills of Kofu and sat on this hill giving magnificent views of the surrounding Japanese Alps. It was quite pleasant!
I was pretty excited to come across this winery that I ventured inside and was met by an older Japanese lady in her 70s. She spoke very little English, but quickly offered me four different types of grapes, two glasses of wine (chilled red and white), and a touch of cold green tea. She smiled and let me enjoy my tasting. The grapes were wonderful, the tea nice, the white wine sweet, and the red wine challenging…..but that did not matter, as I was the only one at this winery for the day and this lady was extremely happy to see another person, one from another country tasting her grapes and wine. A short while later, she came over and asked me where I was from and how long I was in Japan for. I explained to her briefly that I was from America and would be leaving Japan today after three weeks of traveling. We smiled at each other, thanked each other for the company, and I walked out of there with two Japanese wine bottles. The beauty of this experience for me was exactly what I think traveling should be about….No plans, a few ideas once you get moving with a couple expectations, when the expectations aren’t met or ideas don’t pan out, you keep looking and eventually a gem falls in your lap that brings the whole travel experience to a climatic ending!
I did not see Mt. Fugi, but had a great day on the train from Nagano to Tokyo with a side-adventure in Kofu. As I was walking on to the airplane, the flight attendants bumped me up to business class and sent me on my final leg of the journey to San Francisco, California. I thought awesome…..an idea that had started seven years ago which later became a goal had just been completed and would have an impact on my life forever!
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